Numb
by GatorGrrrl
Summary: An expansion of the scene in the movie where Jack drives to Mexico after that fateful meeting with Ennis. He wants to forget, but he can't.


**_TITLE: _**Numb  
**_WARNING:_** M/M sexual situations, bad words  
**_DISCLAIMER:_** I do not own _Brokeback Mountain, _the story or the movie. I am not profiting in any way except creatively.

**_A/N:_** This story is an extension of the very brief scene in the movie where Jack drives to Mexico after his disastrous meeting with Ennis after Ennis' divorce. I just re-watched the movie last night and this scene just screamed out at me to write about it. So here it is.

**_A/N 2:_** If anyone from the _Drake & Josh_ fandom is reading this, this is a LONG WAY from that genre. But I haven't forgotten about "The Quality of Darkness," I swear! More of that story is on the way, I promise. I just _had_ to get this out first.

**_A/N 3:_** This is the first story I have ever written in second person. I hope it came out okay.

* * *

You've never fuckin' learned to stop hoping. _Goddamn him._

Despair had melded into anger before you had even reached Texas, steering you away from Childress and towards El Paso, propelling you across the Mexico border and into Juarez, bustling with life in the waxing darkness.

You grip the steering wheel tightly, knuckles white, fingertips cold from lack of circulation. A muscle twitches in your cheek as you tear at the inside of it, tasting blood.

Snatches of foreign conversations float through the open windows of your pickup. The air is sticky, but the breeze is warm and carries with it the scents of burning tobacco and cooking oil.

You've been here before, this place where for a few American dollars, you can forget your name. Where you can forget that the life you have is the one you don't want and the life you want is the one you can never have.

But most of all, you can try and forget _him._ Except you've never really managed it, in all the times you've been here. There never seems to be enough money, enough tequila, enough anonymous sex with enough anonymous strangers to push the memory of _him_ out of your mind.

Because he lives beneath your skin.

Still, you find yourself opening the door and stepping out, the desiccated grass crunching beneath your boots. You know it's hopeless, this quest you're on, but it's part of the game. So you put one foot in front of the other and walk towards the soft yellow glow and the mingling voices and the smells that you'll carry back to Childress where Lureen will never notice because she doesn't notice anything these days – especially about you.

But _he_ would notice, wouldn't he? 'Cause, dammit, he notices everything with those keen, dark eyes of his. And yet, he seems so fuckin' blind to your pain, like he can't see it, or won't, even though you know it must be obvious because it weighs you down until you can hardly stand up straight.

"_¡Esta chicle!_" The child's voice separates itself from the din. "_¡Esta chicle!_"

The natives glance furtively at you, their dark, assessing stares flitting over you quickly, sizing you up. Just another _gringo,_ they see. Nothing special. And they look away again, forgetting about you just as quickly as they noticed you.

But anonymity is why you're here, isn't it? You just want to shed your skin for a little while, to become someone _else_. To dissolve into the shaded places and melt into the darkness outside before the darkness inside chokes the life out of you completely.

The hopelessness starts to creep in again, crowding in around the edges, making your vision tunnel. Your eyes burn – from exhaustion, from the smoke, from the desperation that claws at your guts.

_Goddammit._

You approach the alley, a long and dark side street lined with men open for business, and it occurs to you suddenly that you should just turn around and walk back to your truck and drive back to Childress, back to Lureen who doesn't love you and to Bobby who's learning not to and to the life you don't want, but, _fuck_, it's better than nothing, right?

Only it isn't, really. And _that's_ why you're here – to push away the thought that no life is better than the one you've got.

So you walk into the alley, the noise of the town fading away behind you, the eyes of the men lining the wall following you. Some of them whisper to you in a language you don't understand, but you get their meaning anyway.

_I can make you forget_, they say.

_Yes. S__í._

That's when you see him, about halfway down the alley. He's tall and dark. Lean. And you feel a twitch in your crotch and clench your jaw against it. You meet his eyes. They look familiar, like the eyes of someone who's more a part of you than your own heart and more vital to life, it sometimes seems. And the part of your mind that's still functioning on an objective level screams at you to walk away, to find someone else – someone shorter, darker, fatter, even. But you're trapped, held in place by a piercing gaze that hardens your cock in an instant.

"¿_Señor?"_ he asks softly, looking you right in the eye. He's direct and his eyes are dark and unblinking and you can't speak so you nod instead, an almost imperceptible movement of your head.

You start walking and he falls in beside you, leading you away from the crowd, from the bustle of the town and its inhabitants, its bars and vendors and crooks and children selling chewing gum on the street. It gets darker as you head deeper into the alley and you're glad because you don't want to _see. _You don't want to _feel,_ either, and you glance at the man beside you – the height is right, too, you think – and hope that he can make you numb.

The first thing you notice about the room when he opens the door is the smell – a stale mixture of sweat, marijuana, and sex. He closes the door and turns to look at you, his dark eyes appraising you closely. He tilts his head and says, _"Mi nombre es Luis."_ And his voice is deep, deeper than in the alley even, and you swallow because to you, at least, it sounds so _familiar._

"My name…_nombre_…is Jack," you say, wondering why you told him. What does it matter? You don't want to be friends. All you really want, if truth be told, is a few moments of blissful oblivion. Even if you have to pay to get it.

"Jack," he says, trying the name on for size, and a funny little half-smile curves his lips. _"Mucho gusto."_

You don't know what that means, but you nod anyway.

He pulls off his shirt, revealing a smooth, muscular chest and you inhale sharply at the sight, your palms suddenly itchy. You smooth them along your jeans, your fingers trembling, and suddenly you find yourself pressed against the wall with his lips against your ear and his cock grinding against yours and you can't breathe.

He's whispering something and his breath is hot and wet against your skin and you feel like your brain is gonna explode any second if he doesn't _do_ something, so you reach deep down for the few words of Spanish that you have locked away and find two that work.

"_Por favor,"_ you whisper raggedly into the sour air, knowing you pronounced it wrong but knowing he understands you anyway. And you hate that you're so needy, but there it is. There it always has been, since the beginning. Since that summer on Brokeback all those years ago showed you who you really are.

He grunts in acknowledgement, pushing away from you long enough to shoot you a feral look, his dark eyes meeting yours for a brief moment in the darkness. But the look stings; it's too _personal_ and so you close your eyes to block it out.

He drops to his knees and opens your jeans, making easy work of your belt and button and zipper. Of course, he's had a lot of practice, you realize, and the thought almost makes you shudder except that he's got his fingers wrapped around your cock and it's hard to even think at all.

You buck your hips when he runs his thumb over the tip and reach blindly for his head, your fingers snaking through his hair and gripping it in handfuls. But you still can't look at him because you know he's not the one you want, the one you're trying to forget. But who the fuck are you kidding, anyway? You're never gonna forget, no matter what. So you should just stop trying.

The hand is replaced by a warm wetness that makes your knees go weak and you start to slump, but his arm is across your hips, holding you in place. "Fuck," you whisper, the word carried on a rush of air that pushes past your lips. "God." Hiss. "Dammit." And your fingers spasm in his hair and he grunts, the sound traveling _through_ you and _ohgodohgodohgod_ you come in a rush and empty into his mouth as light bursts behind your eyelids.

He pulls away with a slight sucking sound and lets go of you and you slide to the floor, breathing heavily, and except for that, it's quiet.

"Jack?" he asks softly after a moment, your name tweaked by his accent.

You open your eyes slowly. You can't see his face, not really, not through the darkness, but you can _feel_ him looking at you. And you feel dirty and wasted and hollow all of a sudden, and it's not fair because you didn't want to feel anything _at all_, dammit. "H-How much?" you ask in a shaky voice, zipping up, and the sound is loud in the silence, making you flinch. _"_¿_Cuesta?"_

He doesn't answer, just tilts his head again and asks in broken English, "No want more?"

The question is a simple one, but it strikes you where it hurts, where it's been hurting for twelve years, and you're stricken speechless. Hell yes, you want more. You want everything you see in _his_ eyes when he looks at you, everything _his_ touch whispers to you when he's holding you. You want everything your dreams promise.

But they're just dreams, and dreams die.

And you start to cry when you realize that yours have been dying slowly for a long time now.

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_Please review. Thank you!_


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